Karachi :— At the 7th CPA Asia Regional Conference in Karachi, where the theme centred on “Legislating for Survival: Climate Resilience and Vulnerable Voices,” Senator Sherry Rehman, chairing the session, delivered a powerful and urgent call to action. She stressed that Asia and Pakistan’s climate emergencies are converging with water scarcity, debt crisis, gender inequality, and urban vulnerability, creating a compound crisis that demands bold reform and political foresight.
Turning to the water crisis — which she called “the heartbeat of Pakistan’s climate emergency” — Senator Rehman underscored that water scarcity, contamination, and mismanagement are accelerating faster than institutional capacity. Responding to a suggestion from a Punjab MP she warned that neither desalination nor high-tech solutions offer realistic pathways for a low-fiscal-space country with public debt at ₨80 trillion. “Desalination works for Saudi Arabia and Singapore,” she said, “but it is capital-intensive and not a silver bullet for Pakistan.” Instead, she urged sustainable, low-cost, long-term solutions focused on conservation, detoxification, and behavioral change.
She stressed that the Indus River cannot replenish Pakistan indefinitely. “Water is not an infinite resource. Like most of nature’s resources — trees, water, air — nothing is infinite.” She emphasised the urgency of regrowing forests in KP, Sindh, and Islamabad, and called for strong public messaging from federal and provincial governments on water conservation. “Groundwater is depleted in places like Balochistan, and the solarisation of tube wells — which reduces energy costs — allows farmers to pump even more water. Surface water is disappearing too with high levels of careless urban consumption and unchecked agricultural water-intensive practices. This can’t change without a massive public sector campaign along with private companies investing in water conservation and detoxification practices. Many companies are dumping untreated effluent into our water channels and rivers. This has to stop. “
Senator Rehman also spoke about the gendered dimension of climate stress, noting that women and girls remain disproportionately burdened by Pakistan’s water emergency. She cited that 72% of the country’s water carriers are women and girls. They are the backbone of our subsistence economy, yet rarely the beneficiaries of its gains.”
She celebrated the Benazir Income Support Programme as the “global gold standard for women-focused social safety nets,” and underscored how BISP was deployed during the 2022 floods to deliver rapid relief. She also lauded Pakistan’s resilient housing program, where over 2 million post-flood homes are being delivered with land and ownership titles issued to women. “This is structural transformation,” she said. “This shifts power in a way no slogan ever can.”
On the issue of plastics, Senator Rehman delivered a direct message to policymakers, educators, and citizens alike. “Single use Plastics are landing up in our landfills and our rivers and coastline — but where is the awareness that this forever chemical cannot be allowed to imperil our future? What exactly are we recycling, when the world recycles only 9% and Pakistan only 1%?” She urged a shift to low-cost alternatives and the elimination of unnecessary plastics, citing the example of schoolbooks covered in millions of new plastic wraps every year. She informed delegates that she has already moved a bill in Islamabad to restrict plastic usage and urged Sindh to adopt similar measures. “This must become a legislative movement,” she declared.
Senator Rehman emphasised that Pakistan has already lived through climate catastrophes that the world struggles to comprehend. She recalled the 2022 mega-floods that submerged one-third of the country, pushed between 8 to 9 million people into poverty, caused $12.97 billion in agricultural losses, shaved off 8% of GDP, damaged 1.3 million homes, and affected 33 million people. Over 1,700 lives were lost. “These are not abstract numbers,” she said. “These are human futures washed away.” She added that Pakistan’s future risks remain staggering, citing FCDO projections that climate shocks could cost Pakistan up to $1.2 trillion by 2050.
Highlighting the severe fiscal constraints faced by climate-vulnerable countries, Senator Rehman referenced Pakistan’s June 2025 debt statistics, noting that the country’s public debt had reached $286.83 billion (₨80.6 trillion), while 46.7% of the federal budget — ₨8.206 trillion out of ₨17.573 trillion — now goes to debt servicing. “Nearly half of every rupee goes to paying off old loans,” she stressed. “Not to building resilience. Not to developing human capital. Not to climate-proofing our future.”
Senator Rehman warned that Asia as a whole requires $1.11 trillion annually to adapt to climate impacts but receives only $333 billion, most of which arrives as debt. She noted that despite massive exogenous stress, Pakistan’s current climate flows cover only 6% of its needs. “This is not a viable trajectory,” she said, calling current financing dynamics an “impossible paradox,” where 40% of global emissions come from only two countries, 10 countries account for 75% of emissions, and these same countries receive 85% of global green financing. “No substantive climate financing today is without debt,” she stated. “Every dollar arrives with interest, conditionality, and shrinking development sovereignty. We are being asked to borrow our way out of climate disasters we did not cause.”
Addressing urban vulnerability, Senator Rehman described Karachi as one of the world’s largest megacities — ranked in the global top 10 — whose municipal infrastructure is overwhelmed by chronic and climate-driven in-migration. She stressed that Sindh has historically opened its doors to all Pakistanis, from partition migrants in 1947 to Afghan and Iranian arrivals, and now to citizens displaced by climate and poverty. “We will always be home to everyone,” she affirmed, “but unmanaged influx is placing unprecedented stress on the urban system.”
She concluded by reminding the region’s parliamentarians that climate resilience is inseparable from social justice, debt reform, gender equity, and political will. “Use this convening as a call to action,” she urged. “Legislate for survival. Guard your water. Regrow your trees. Reduce your plastics. Invest in your women. And demand a global climate financing system that does not punish the vulnerable.”
